Introduction

Last year, I introduced a game theory approach for comparing baseball projection systems. Today, I have once again applied the same methodology in order to evaluate which set of baseball projections excelled in 2019.

Most others who venture in such a comparative exercise make use of some type of statistical analysis. They calculate least square errors, perform a chi-squared test, or perhaps do hypothesis testing. I won’t be engaging in any of these capable methods.

Instead, I will look to determine the profitability potential of each projection system by simulating what would have happened in a fantasy auction draft. Instead, I’ll play a game.

What do I mean by this?

First, think about what happens in a fantasy baseball draft auction.

Suppose that Rudy Gamble of Razzball (or anyone who exclusively uses the Razzball projections) walks into a rotisserie auction league prior to the 2019 baseball season. Let’s say that Rudy decides to participate in an NFBC auction league. Mr. Gamble would take his projections and run them through a valuation method to obtain auction prices. He would generate a list that looked something like this …

Razzball Projected Values: Chris Sale 49, Mike Trout 45, Jacob deGrom 44, Max Scherzer 44. Mookie Betts 42, J.D. Martinez 37, Giancarlo Stanton 36, Justin Verlander 35, … , Brandon Lowe 1, Josh Reddick 1, Mark Melancon 1, etc.

In addition to the raw projected values generated by the Razzball system, Rudy would then establish a price point that he is willing to pay for each player. There might be a premium that he will pay for the top ones, and a discount that he expects to save on lower cost players. He may be willing to bid up to $46 on Jacob deGrom (valued at $44), but would only pay $1 for a $4 Jason Kipnis, etc. Read the rest of this entry »

While it might be better to focus on FAAB usage right before the season starts, I wanted to have an idea on how to focus my draft resources. Also, FAAB management was one of my major faults after I picked over my 2019 teams. It was an issue and I need to address it. Now is the time. I took the 50 players with the highest average FAAB bids in the 2019 NFBC Main Event ($1000 in FAAB) and found which players were the best and worse deals and did the best deals have similar actionable traits.

Note: One unintended side effect was that the minimum average value was $51, so all players with a bid of over $50.

To rank the player’s usefulness, I pair them up against each other and let my Twitter followers which of the two players were a better deal last year. While not ideal or the only method I could have used (I could create from value to EOS), it was the quickest and the rankings pass the idiot check (me, myself, and I).

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I covered my first 10 rounds and the strategy that went along with it in my article yesterday.  

You can also find the full draft board there. This is a 50-round draft and hold league that will finish the draft in January. Here are my picks from round 11-21:

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After years of jealousy sitting at home, I finally was able to attend First Pitch Arizona earlier this month. Quick Plug: if you have the opportunity to do go, it is a fantastic experience that is well worth the money. First Pitch has amazing panels and seminars that will really sharpen your game, but more importantly than that, the discussions you have with some of the smartest people in the industry are invaluable.

Now, every year there are drafts that occur at FPAZ. I thought it would be a fun experiment for me to try a new strategy I have been game planning for the 2020 season. The draft was a NFBC style 15-team 50 round draft and hold. We drafted the first 21 rounds in Arizona and then will draft the rest in January. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I looked at the largest auction player bargains of 2019. These were the players who were highly profitable after considering their opportunity cost of acquisition. We defined the bargain amount as:

$Bargain = $Value – $AAV

We defined $Value as the accumulated 5×5 full season rotisserie value of each player, and $AAV as the average auction cost to purchase the player pre-season. We make use of the NFBC Average Auction Values which are readily available to us.

For the full methodology of how these player bargains are calculated, please refer to my introductory post.

Today’s attention will be directed to what I refer to as the value drainers. These are the largest “rip-offs” of 2019 – i.e., the players who earned the most negative profits for fantasy owners on a full season basis (net of their auction price). Read the rest of this entry »

The Arizona Fall League moved up the Fall Stars game to mid-October this year which in turn moved up Baseball HQ’s First Pitch Forum conference. As you may know if you’ve been following me for a while, we conduct some early NFBC Draft and Hold leagues out there where we select our first 23 players live and then finish the remaining 27 rounds online in January. This is always fun because of how fresh we are off the regular season and it’s interesting to see how much recency bias owns the draft. Plus, there’s the bonus of being at the AFL meaning some of the prospects on the cusp get pushed up as well.

Here’s a quick rundown of my first 23 picks conducted out of the 13 spot. I’ve long aimed for a late pick in order to be early in the first round (actually the 24th) when we resume in January as news and moves often create some big-time values to be garnered that late in the draft.

1.13 – Justin Verlander | SP, HOU

I figured picking late would leave looking at a starter in the first round and I have no problem with that. There is some trepidation with taking a 37-year old pitcher for some, but I don’t share those reservations because there is literally nothing in Verlander’s profile that makes him look like a risk outside of his age.

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Note: For my next few articles, I’m going to examine the hitters and pitchers who underperformed and overperformed in 2019. Each article may spawn off others since some areas may need to be explored in more detail. After performing horribly in 2019, I need to take take a hard look at why I missed last season and what I can do to improve.

I’m going to start with the one player class every owner hopes to hit on, breakout hitters. A couple of these cheaply acquired star hitters can help carry a team. It could be a prospect turned uber-prospect (e.g. Pete Alonso) or just a hitter displaying new skills (e.g. Ketel Marte). I’m going to dig into the reason these breakouts were not draft-day targets and look for any common themes.

To get the test subjects, I ran our auction calculator for end-of-season production and then compared the auction dollars to the values created from their ADP. I didn’t want to just use the difference in ranks because the gap from #1 to #15 could be over $10 but the difference between #250 to #300 might just be $1. Using this method, I found 62 hitters who outperformed their value by $10 or more.
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… but not by much for teams I just owned …

My 2019 fantasy season did not live up to my standards with most of the struggles being self-inflicted. Here are some overarching themes I spotted with each league plus some additional points at the end.

Horrible FAAB management

I ran out of money in almost every league and spent too much FAAB on worthless assets. Looking back over the leagues, the root cause was chasing week-only plays. From my work writing “The Process”, I found out how valuable it is to grind out each week. Additionally, I ran the weekly FAAB projections here so I knew around what it would take to get each. Initially, I got the players and but dropped them a week or two later for better options with little to show for the FAAB spent

I need to set a FAAB limit for chasing week-only plays and just accept it’s fine to miss out on a few players. A week’s advantage is worth the same in week 1 or the final week. The rest of my FAAB can be used for chasing long term improvements. Some players may straddle the long-term and weekly play so the FAAB may come from both the weekly and long term pools. I need to have a plan and stick to it.
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The 2019 MLB regular season has concluded. Two Astros may very well finish 1-2 in the AL Cy Young award. The Brewers went on an unbelievable Yelich-less run to make the playoffs – only to be eliminated in the wildcard game with their best pitcher on the mound. A new record was set for rookie homeruns in a single season. The Yankees hit 306 HRs as a team, and yet that did not set a record; the Twins hit 307! Baseball set a new collective HR record. It was the year of the longball, or as Jeff Zimmerman calls it, “Happy Fun Ball.”

It is now time to check back on how we fared this year in fantasy. Let’s start with a review of this season’s bold predictions.

As I often remind my readers – we will never succeed in getting the entirety of our bold predictions correct, or even realize a majority of them. If I wanted to achieve a high success rate, I could simply have filled up my list of predictions with easy ones such as “Justin Verlander will win 10+ games this season.” That class of prediction would have been too easy.

Rather, the point of the exercise is to highlight certain undervalued (or overvalued) players by choosing a few unlikely, yet achievable outcomes. The idea is to target somewhere between the 70^th and 90^th percentiles of possible outcomes – predictions which are 10-30% likely to occur.

I often use the ATC Projections as a guide for these bold predictions. I look at where the ATC projections generate an outcome which varies significantly from what the general public perceives will happen. Some other times – I just go with my gut and with my own intuition.

Let’s recap!

#1: Matt Barnes will finish as a top 5 saves leader in 2019

There are two elements that need to occur for a relief pitcher to accumulate saves. The pitcher needs to:

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Introduction

Does it make a difference as to a fantasy baseball team’s starting draft position? Are all draft slots created equally? Is it better to be at the ends (wheel/turn), or rather, is it more opportune to make one’s selections from the middle of the order?

To try and help us answer these questions, let’s look at what happened in 2019. Now, of course, the current season isn’t over just yet – there are still a few more weeks of baseball. However, now in mid-September, it is sufficiently late in the season for us to analyze how the draft positions played out over the course of 2019.

Sources Used

For this study, we will observe the standings for three different league types:

• TGFBI – 21 Leagues
• NFBC Main Event – 38 Leagues
• NFBC Draft Champions – 230 Leagues

TGBFI (The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational) is our own Justin Mason’s creation. It is a compilation of 315 fantasy baseball experts, divided into 21 NFBC-Style divisions. The 315 experts are also pitted against each other in a large overall competition. [I am the host of the TGFBI Beat the Shift Podcast, which can be found right here.]

The NFBC (National Fantasy Baseball Championship) Main Event is a set of high money entry leagues, with large financial payouts for the victors. As with TGFBI, the teams are all additionally entered into an overall contest with even larger payouts for the top finishers.

The NFBC Draft Champion leagues are money league contests as well (although their cost and payouts are far less than that of the main event leagues). As I will further describe below, they are 50-round slow drafts.

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